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Thursday, September 21, 2017

I’m still exploring watercolours during the month of
September and decided to revisit a subject I painted in oils a couple of years
ago (in a much larger format) just to see how I would handle it in watercolour. It turned out very similar to the first one –
I had intended to have more variations of the pinks into blues. I think it turned out okay, but I still have more
experimenting and exploration to do …

Friday, September 15, 2017

I’m continuing to challenge myself by working with
watercolours after a 9-year absence from them, and adding in the further
challenge of doing a landscape, of which I have probably done twice before in
my artistic endeavours. I find the
greenery tricky to pull off, as well as resisting the urge to paint every
little detail in the whole scene – which isn’t very practical on a 5 x 7 inch
image!

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

This is my latest little watercolour for the month of September. The subject is a beautiful heirloom tomato grown by my father-in-law, who was gracious enough to gift us with a few of them from their garden after my own first attempt at growing tomatoes yielded four very pathetic golf-ball sized pretenders!

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Here is my latest little watercolour for the 30 in 30
challenge. It took a lot of restraint
for me to not go too deep “into the weeds” to try and bring out every detail –
that is also part of what I am trying to challenge myself with this month. I wanted to try and keep it fairly simple but
still have enough interest to make it worth painting.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

I am continuing to explore my floral-inspired abstracts and
this is the latest study that I completed.
I liked how it turned out so I may try it out in a larger scale oil
painting in the weeks or months to come. For now, this little piece will be my
latest (and overdue) installment for my 30 in 30, which is already downgraded
to 27 in 30 – I got distracted by the long weekend!

Saturday, September 2, 2017

The
picture I used as a reference for this painting didn’t actually have water in
it – there was a bend in the road and the view beyond was originally more
greenery and trees. I thought it needed
something else, so it became a beach!

Friday, September 1, 2017

For the month of September I will be participating in the “30
in 30 challenge” on Leslie
Saeta’s blog. So, in theory, I will
be posting a painting every day both here on my blog and on the 30 in 30 Blog
as well. This is a challenge that Leslie
has offered up twice a year for the last few years now, and I am finally
attempting to take part! I’m not
promising that I will actually post a new painting every day, but I will
challenge myself to at least paint a lot more frequently and hopefully get
close to that goal.

But for the first time in over nine years, I
will be doing some of that work using watercolours, just to change things
up. Still, some of the work you’ll see
will be oils, but hopefully a lot will be watercolours like today’s painting ...change is as good as a rest.

Friday, June 30, 2017

My love affair with peonies continues, but I so wish they could stick around longer than just a couple of weeks, though I guess if they were here all summer, we might take them for granted. I love the way they look and smell and since the time they have with us is so short every year, the next best thing is a painting of them ...

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Once upon a time - many years ago, I played the flute … a
little. I took lessons for a couple of
years and really enjoyed every minute of it, but as years went by the lessons and the flute were put
away and sadly I barely remember any of what I learned back then. But I still have the flute and in recent
weeks decided if I can’t play it anymore I can at least paint it. I loved capturing the reflected lights as well as all the interesting details. In reality the flute is actually a more common silver plate, but I decided
to play around with the colours and painted it in gold tones to contrast nicely against the blue
background.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

This is a re-working of a painting I had done a while back - I always wondered if the background was a bit too dark for the overall composition. So I worked on the lights on the fruit as well as adding in some lighter green/blue into the background. I feel like the changes allow the painting to live up to it's title - "Sunny" Fruit Bowl.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

There’s
something about a beetle car that makes me want to paint it. This one was basking in the sunshine at an
antique car show and it caught my eye right away. I think it’s all the curvy lines that makes it
an interesting subject for me plus the nostalgia that they seem to radiate.

Friday, February 17, 2017

I think musical instruments not only make beautiful sounds
but can also be beautiful pieces of art in and of themselves. I noticed this violin at an antiques fair last
summer and although it obviously wasn’t a prized Stradivarius or anything
remotely similar, its shape, colour and potential all called to me in chorus. I knew it would make a great subject.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

A new version of a painting I did a while back. Though I was happy with the original, after
some consideration, I felt that it needed an extra layer of highlights and some
minor adjustments, so I finally went ahead and did that. I’m really happy with the results, so sharing
it here.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

This
painting was based on a scene I woke up to during the first winter that we
lived in our current house. That winter
was a particularly cold one, ushering in the phrase “polar vortex”. Despite the bitterness of the temperature, everything
seemed to come to life with the light pulsing through the naked trees and
scattering itself into hundreds of glowing diamond pieces across the backyard.

About Me

I grew up in beautiful Prince Edward Island, Canada, where I spent my childhood and teenage years until moving to Ontario as a young adult. I consider myself a "born" artist ... (to read more click the "About Me" tab above left in margarethorvat.blogspot.ca).